[OOC] Heart of Darkness (Part II)

[Mindsiege]

GM introduction Hey, I'm Mindsiege and your West Marches GM of the day. I'm happy to have you onboard and I'm looking forward to telling this story together with you and your characters. Having gotten that out of the way, below there are some keynotes that might get you adjusted for playing under me. If there are ever any questions, simply shoot them my way. Post requirements 1) Please use at least minimal formatting in your posts for legibility. During combat, that includes a separate section (under a button or in a fieldset) stating movement, action, etc. Let me know if you need a template to copy - I knew nothing about BBcode formatting before I came to RPGX. 2) Please keep OOC-only posts in this thread. An OOC comment within a regular game (IC) post is fine, although you can feel encouraged to do that sparingly. 3) Out of combat, I'll wait for some undefined reasonable time for you to post. In combat, I won't update until all players have posted. As an RPGX player, I usually propose to the group that, after X period of time after an in-combat GM post, any player can post for a PC who hasn't been posted for yet. I usually use 24 or 48 hours, but that's entirely flexible. That's all up to you, though; you have to (politely) police posting speed issues yourselves. Also, please use the OOC to communicate any delays to your own posts. 4) Even if my own GM posts end up being wordy most of the time, please feel encouraged to tell your character's story in your own style. General Tips 1) As part of the WM house rules expect that you'll only have two short rests and no long rests across the entirety of the adventure, regardless of whether, e.g., the PCs get a full night of rest. 2) Remember that this isn't a combat-only game; look for opportunities to use skills and non-combat abilities. Generally, the right approach usually beats relying on brute force in terms of effectiveness, and the more ways you can resolve issues outside of combat, the more resources you can save up for the instances where combat is the only path to resolution. 3) I appreciate it if players choose to RP their attributes, but please don't feel bound by them to explore the vision of your character. Even with a bad charisma stat you're allowed to have your character being active in social encounters as much as it fits their personality. 4) Outside of combat I don't require you to limit yourself to a single skill check per post on principle. But please limit yourself to only do as many actions that the other characters also get something to do and where consequences of your actions aren't likely to influence the I'd like to keep retconning to a minimum, even as I liberally give that option to my players if the situation calls for it.following outcomes. You can always ask me OOC about the outcomes of your actions and I will let you know them without you having to wait for the GM post, but please let's keep this within reason so that all players can contribute at the same pace. 5) When your character wants to do something to influence the scenario, don't feel limited by the options provided by the rules. If your described approach is something that could realistically succeed to achieve your intended result, I will find some rules to adjudicate your actions, though I will only tell you the obvious consequences of failure. Either way, for that sake it's important that you are thorough in declaring your approach and intent when declaring actions. If I have to guess what is happening in the story I will usually ask, but I'd like to keep the job of figuring out solutions on the side of the players, so if something is imprecise I might be forced to resolve things unfavorably. 6) At any point, it's all right for you to leave rolling for the success of your actions to me as the GM. If you have a good guess what rules I will be using to resolve your action it's no problem for you to include the rolls as Rolling can happen inline, in your action section of the post or within the Lady Luck dice thread, with a link to that dice post in the IC post.part of your post, but I might end up choosing to resolve an action differently from your expectation. If I think a course of action that your character undertakes requires a roll, I will roll it myself to speed up the game. But similar to the previous point, I will only resolve actions that are declared with a clear intent, so if you want something to happen it's probably a good idea to highlight those parts to me in your post. This however won't protect you from consequences that you didn't want to happen. 7) If you ever wonder what's possible, ask me in the OOC. Rules for this game 1) Generally I will stay within the rules as written (RAW), but as the GM I retain the right to rule differently if anything looks like it will threaten the verisimilitude of the game world. Most of the combat will happen under grid rules where I will provide a battlemap, but if applicable we might switch to our theatre of the mind. 2) Visibility and light rules are in effect whenever I don't forget them. You'll do well to consider them too. 3) Cover rules are in effect and since I won't provide 3D maps most of that will be resolved in our theatre of the mind. Usually I will point out terrain or conditions that will give cover without any particular interaction by the characters, but always feel free to ask what is possible within each moment. Especially considering angles for ranged attacks, it's possible that some objects will result in cover only when you stand in a certain way relative to your target. Also it's possible to hit the cover with your attacks, so consider that it's possible to hit your allies if I don't believe that they could reasonably coordinate with you for you to shoot past them (think shooting into bottlenecks vs. standing directly behind your ally and them letting you attack past them). In short, if you're unsure about cover, ask the GM. 4) This game will not be using the optional flanking rules. 5) I'll explain to you how we do initiative as soon as we get into high tension situations that require it. But you can assume that initiative will matter mostly during the first turn of combat after which I will average my rolls for a single NPC turn. Generally, I process all player turns in post-order, but I let you know whenever I want those to happen as part of my GM instructions during combat. 6) I'll be making use of passive scores for skills to resolve anything that I think should be passively resolved. 7) I'll be using the optional rules for Overrun and Tumble. I don't believe that they will come up that often. 8) I like to enable stealth as much as possible, but for it to work it usually requires an approach that keeps you out of the awareness of the senses of those that would be trying to detect you. Ask me OOC what is possible. 9) Beware of surprise. You and your enemies will make use of those rules whenever it's applicable. I will resolve whether a character gets surprised individually, especially if no preparation for coordination happened apriori. Points of note 1) Treasure will be presented to you as the narrative evolves. It's your character's responsibility to pick them up. For your character to be eligible for the adventure rewards I require your character to take a substantial part in resolving the adventure's primary quest. Loot allocation however remains the responsibility of the players. 2) I don't fudge dice or provide a deus ex machina if things get hairy. Once the encounter starts, I won't save your PC from bad luck or bad decisions unless that was always planned for that encounter. As such, I urge you to try to treat the consequences of your character's actions as seriously as I will treat them. I'm trying to challenge you, and I promise I'm not trying to kill your PC, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. Death is also part of any story, just ask the poor NPCs, but please believe that I enjoy a story more where the player characters rise victorious in the end. And even if you were to fail your quest, that's not always the end of the story, but you should try not to let that happen. Resources table Character AC HP PP PI Movement Conditions Resources Jimmy 17/15 34/43 14 15 30' - Hexblade's Curse 0/1; Favored by the Gods 1/1; Spells I. 0/2 II. 0/2; Short rests 0/2; HD 0/4 1/1 Kosev 21/19 22/30 12 16 30' Active Darkvision spell, Inspiration Arcane Recovery 0/1; Second Wind 0/1; Spells I. 2/4 II. 0/2; Short rests 1/2; HD 1/1 3/3 Boanagh 15 16/32 16 10 30' - Darkness 0/1; Short rests 0/2; HD 4/5 Scout 11 1/1 13 6 5' / 60' (fly) - - Tink 13 10/10 11 10 20' / 40' (fly) - Short rests 2/2; HD 3/3 Initiative Character AC HP Status Action Position Now that we've gotten through all of that, again, please be welcome and feel free to introduce yourself to the group with your first post. As one final bookkeeping before we can start, please proofread for me whether I've made a mistake when I allocated your resource table. Also, please signify to the group if you agree to employ the 48-hour rule for this game.

[Mindsiege]

Well, obviously you didn't need a GM introduction from me, but for the sake of completeness and other readers, here it is.

[Mindsiege]

Mechanically, we're still not done with the long rest. We'll be doing that after the war council, where I'll give you the opportunity to provide proper downtime posts which will be counted officially as your WM downtime post from after the first half. But don't worry too much yet, I'll instruct you then how I'm planning to do this cleanly.

[Mindsiege]

Here's the first post of the new adventure thread! You know the drill.

Also, please give me a life sign in here so I know that everybody has the new threads on their radar.

[secretID]

Howdy! I'll need a day or two to read everything.

[purplerook]

Posted in IC

[Mindsiege]

@purplerook:
I forgot to say, the next prompt would come from Boanagh after roughly 6 hours. Are you fine leaving Kosev to brood for that long?

[purplerook]

Alright,

Sorry guys. I thought I was subscribed to Part II, but I was not. I have subscriptions to the OOC and IC portions of HoD part 2.

1. Co-ordinate Cantrips between Jimmy and Kosev. Kosev has four that he can swap out.
2. Finalize the two ‘free’ spell selections for Kosev. Shadow Blade is sub-optimal, but such a cool spell
3. Partial Shopping list - magical/silvered weapon (for Yeth Hounds). Less of an issue if he takes Shadow Blade
4. Crafting Scrolls - if available
5. Some minor purchases (if Gold is available) - Climbing Kit, Healing Potion,

[secretID]

Don't forget Silvery Barbs. (:

[purplerook]

Originally Posted by secretID

Don't forget Silvery Barbs. (:

If it was available, I’d abuse use it.

[secretID]

I don't believe we've voted...

[purplerook]

Originally Posted by secretID

I don't believe we've voted...

The GM’s have not voted, but Mindsiege was very explicit in term of ruling it (actually all of Strixhaven) out of any of his games.

[Mindsiege]

To be clear, I'm not enforcing it yet but because of my strong preference, I've asked purplerook just for this game to wait with learning the spell. If we're not going to vote to ban it, the game after HoD will easily allow him to pick up the spell then. And to complete this adventure Kosev will be good without it.

[secretID]

I think Jimmy is good to go. He'll want to do a little mundane shopping if possible, but that doesn't have to be IC. And whatever explanation we're doing for the Wand of Magic Detection.

[Mindsiege]

@secretID:
Right, let's do all of that after the next scene with the elders. If you find the time, a small transition post about Jimmy's experience talking to the darklings from his POV might be nice to fill the empty air, because it will take me a bit for this game to slide back up on the schedule.